Villainy is more complicated and victory less assured. It seems almost dishonest to refuse to acknowledge that things that Mockingjay seems dedicated to exploring. It seems unfair and unrealistic to believe that violence is a mess that can be cleaned up.

Perhaps it's callous to love dystopia, to soak up stories where the characters are much worse off than you are, but the fiction shelves of bookstores are littered with these premises. For some reason, we just can't get enough of the world ending. And rebooting, in the most terrifying ways.

Humanity's so-far tepid response is our across-all-party's collective failing and is ominous enough. It is a tragedy, then, that, as we edge closer to the brink of the "fire" itself, we may go in the completely dead-wrong direction: ushering in folks who, far from calling all-hands-on-deck, seem prepared to disable the alarm altogether.

By forcing real people to follow a script, market-tested for success, and turning the audience and media against anyone who dares defy that script, the puppet masters of reality TV have made us choose a thirst for entertainment over compassion for real lives at stake.